Father's Day in Indiana by the numbers

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Just in time for Father's Day this Sunday (June 15), the Indiana Business Research Center in Indiana University's Kelley School of Business has offered some interesting statistics, based on the most current data:

Celebrate Father's Day with facts about dad from the IBRC.

How many fathers?

There are an estimated 64.3 million fathers across the nation. Indiana has an estimated 1.35 million fathers.

Among the 30.2 million fathers living with children younger than 18, 85 percent live with their biological children only. In addition, 11 percent live with stepchildren, 4 percent with adopted children and fewer than 1 percent with foster children.

41 percent of fathers are part of married-couple families with children younger than 18.

There were 2.5 million single fathers in the United States in 2006, up from 400,000 in 1970. Currently, among single parents living with their children, 19 percent are men.

Among single fathers:

8 percent are raising three or more children younger than 18.

About 42 percent are divorced, 38 percent are never married, 16 percent are separated and 4 percent are widowed. (There is no significant difference between the percentages of single fathers who are divorced or never married.)

16 percent live in someone else's home.

27 percent have an annual family income of $50,000 or more.

What to get for Dad

A good place to buy dad a tie or a shirt might be one of Indiana's 152 men's clothing stores. Other items high on the list of Father's Day gifts are tools, such as hammers, wrenches and screwdrivers. You could buy such items for Dad at one of the state's 351 hardware stores or 143 home centers. Or check out Indiana's 471 sporting goods stores, good places to purchase traditional gifts for dad such as fishing rods and golf clubs.

"Mr. Mom"

There were an estimated 159,000 stay-at-home dads nationally in 2006. These married fathers with children younger than 15 have remained out of the labor force for at least one year primarily so they can care for the family while their wives work outside the home.

These fathers cared for 283,000 children. Among these stay-at-home dads, 60 percent had two or more children, and 40 percent had an annual family income of $50,000 or more.

There were 11.3 million preschoolers whose mothers are employed. Of those, 25 percent are regularly cared for by their father during their mother's working hours. This amounted to 2.9 million children.

Dining with Daddy

The percentage of children younger than age 6 living with married parents in 2003 who ate breakfast with their fathers every day was 30 percent. The corresponding number for children living with unmarried fathers was 41 percent.

64 percent of children younger than age 6 living with married parents ate dinner with their fathers every day. The corresponding number for children living with unmarried fathers was 66 percent.

The Indiana Business Research Center is part of a national network of State Data Centers and acts as the official state representative to the Census Bureau on matters relating to the census and population estimates. The IBRC also develops and maintains STATS Indiana, the award winning, state-supported Web service (www.stats.indiana.edu).